Editors note: This is one more in a series of statements presented to the US State Department for their hearing last week (May 15th) on the “size and scope” of refugee admissions for FY2014. I will continue to post testimony from the hearing in between the pressing news of the day. Between refugee terrorist stories and the US Senate bill S.744 (Senate terrorist stories!) I’ve been pretty distracted. This forcefully delivered statement by Anne Turner of Maryland wrapped up the public meeting last week. All other testimony that we’ve posted is archived here in our special category for the meeting.
Anne Turner (emphasis added is mine):
I come here today not as a member of an organization or a political activist but as a concerned citizen and fearful mother. I am very much afraid for my country, for my family and for myself. We have maintained an immigration policy in this country that has put all that I consider a treasure at risk. There was a time when immigrants coming to this country respected our laws, understood our culture (wanted to be a part of it) and were equally proud to become Americans. This is no longer the case. All the chaos and violence that exists in the world today is being imported into our borders with no consideration for the destruction it is causing. We are building our very own “Tower of Babel”.
I remember a time when I was able to visit a shopping mall with no sense of fear. A time when I could get on an airplane and not feel my life was potentially at risk. A time when I could travel to a major city and not have to worry that there might be a terrorist attack. A time when I would tell my children “let’s go to the 4th of July celebration” and now I tell them “stay home”. The days are gone when I felt my life was my own, my home my sanctuary, and my country free.
Immigration policies, through this Resettlement Program, have been totally corrupted. There has been collusion between this administration and the NGO’s with dangerous consequences. The money being funneled through these organizations and their never-ending appetite for money and power have removed all reason and common sense. Under the guise of “good works and humanitarianism”, the fabric of this nation has been dramatically altered, if not destroyed. This “Resettlement Program” has stolen our very identity. Our freedoms are disappearing. To be safe we now live in a world where the government has to keep a constant surveillance on its own countrymen. We have soldiers in the streets threatening law-abiding citizens (have you seen those pictures of Boston?), data from our phone conversations is being monitored, and our ability to protect ourselves is being challenged. Even with the imposition of government into every facet of our lives, the task of keeping us safe is becoming increasingly impossible,
You don’t even know who you are bringing into this country! They cannot be properly vetted because they have no reliable form of identification, not even birth certificates. How can you even know who they are or what their intentions are? And what is this nonsense that women from Pakistan and Afghanistan should automatically be able to come to this country to escape persecution? Do you really think that by the very nature of a woman’s existence she is an innocent? Do you think having an open border policy for women excludes us from terrorist threats? Have you already forgotten that the one responsible for radicalizing the Boston Marathon Bombers was their mother? Women are as easily radicalized as any man. These are just two of many examples of the twisted logic of your immigration policies.
(In response to another speaker)
I hear you speak of the plight of women in other countries being the victim of the Sex Slave Trade. Well, we have a brought this problem into our own country with present immigration policies and I strongly recommend we clean up our own back yard before we start trying to cure the ails of the rest of the world.
You sit in this bubble called “Washington” totally out of touch with the results of the decisions you make and the impact they have on our lives. Then you have the audacity to say that “it is for our own good, the good of the country”. Well, I would like to see one of you living in the middle of the consequences of your actions. I would love to have you live across from a development that reeks of sewage because these immigrants don’t’ even have the most primitive of sanitary habits. I would love for you to have to live amongst a crumbling infrastructure because all the communities are spending taxpayer’s hard-earned money on supporting these people instead of repairing our roads, our drainage system, and our schools. They have no desire to educate themselves, no desire to learn our language, and don’t even understand the basics of a civilized society. Yet, you dump them on us and then call us “racist” if we dare to complain. I think it is time for you to experience the realities of your lofty decisions.
If it is so very important for you to help these people, and I do understand the necessity to help people, then go live amongst them and change them. Go live amidst their squalor and teach them to be clean, go live amidst their poverty and teach them to be entrepreneurs, go experience the violence of their daily lives and teach them reason. Go do your good works…………. JUST DO NOT BRING THEM HERE!!
Ms. Turner went on to conclude by asking where are the legally mandated annual reports to Congress, something we too have been harping on here for years. The Office of Refugee Resettlement is required by law to produce a detailed report of the refugee program within three months of the close of the fiscal year. They are three years behind. Turner continued:
And I, also, would like to know where the annual reports are. You are mandated, by law, to make them available to every citizen in this country and you have not done this since 2009. As a citizen, I want to see those reports now!
Readers, do any of you have testimony you wish to share publicly? We received a very large packet of statements at the hearing and many of you sent testimony—there were many more statements against bringing more refugees in 2014 then there were promoting more refugee resettlement.